


All This Time

by hamlate



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Introspection, Love, M/M, Realization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-01-19
Packaged: 2018-03-08 04:55:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3196064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamlate/pseuds/hamlate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What is love to Kaneki Ken?</p>
            </blockquote>





	All This Time

Someone once asked me if I knew what love was.

I said I didn't.

But then you laughed with no care, like the whole world was nothing but background noise. You walked so unafraid, so unapologetic, in a world that feared those who were not the same. 

And in that moment I swear you shined brighter than the sun.

One of my classmates told us that her parents were in love. They stayed with each other through the times of their lives when they were at their worst, and I remember thinking what a foolish assumption to make. 

Then, that one day, when the sky was painted a permanent gray and the world stared me down until I could no longer stand. When black silhouettes towered over me, apologies hanging on their lips. Like cigar smoke empty words filled my lungs, drowning me in its toxins, until breathing became a task that only induced pain. 

I was afraid. 

Afraid because everyone was suddenly leaving me all alone, leaving me hanging on a string positioned between a scissors blade. I was petrified that I would go back to being the way I was before, blinded by an incomprehensible grief. Then, like the sun behind storm clouds, although not always seen but there nonetheless, you held me in your arms until I cried my pain away. It suddenly didn't hurt to breathe anymore, and I wondered why.

I heard someone say they thought love was when you felt at ease in their arms. When the life of peacefulness only obtained through the pages of fiction became a fact of life. It was a ridiculous notion, I knew that.

So it just so happens that when I was with you, everything would be lighter, as if I was existing in a daydream of sorts. Not quite awake, but not in the realm of dreams. An existence built on the simple thought that everything was alright, because you were there. 

In a book that I read it told me that love was when someone wanted to be with you, to care for you. I knew that could never be true.

So why, when you encouraged me when I met that pretty girl, I felt like my heart was splitting in two?

They say love is when the slight thought of losing someone fills you with the worst kind of feeling. One that sits in your heart, heavy and too painful for words. I had always believed something like that couldn't exist.

Yet after days spent apart in a vain attempt to avoid you're questioning glances, you asked what I've been doing all of this time because, "rabbits get lonely you know?" I only responded with a half-hearted smile and a poorly constructed lie I had prayed you wouldn't see through, because the thought of losing you was just too much to bear. That day, I felt something so incredibly painful I started to question my own heart.

They say, love is unforgiving.

When darkness became my sole companion in the hands of a tortured man, I still thought about you. Subjected to the horrors of my past, through fits of manic laughter and strangled pleas of mercy that tore through my throat until I no longer recognized my own voice, I started to wish for something incredibly selfish. 

She says, love is selfish.

Even when you were no longer with me and I yearned to see your face, I couldn't bring myself to look for you. Even after I destroyed myself to become someone who was no longer afraid. Not because I was worried you would pity who I used to be, but because you would pity who I became.

He says, love is blind.

It was only after, when I had finally reached the end of my road, hovering on the border between salvation and death and worn down by exhaustion. When I was covered in scars so deep my mind refused to function. Down in those dirty and terribly dark sewers where I rested in a pool of my stained blood, you found your way back to me. 

It seemed a dam composed of forgotten memories had suddenly broke, flooding my head with the smell of sandalwood, of shared glances, a pair of headphones lying in wait. Oranges and greens, yellows and a light that burned steadily in the silent night. Memories of a laugh untouched by the tragedies of this world. Memories of a golden boy. Even though it was too late, I was finally okay. You gave me back something that I had lost somewhere along the way, when you told me it was finally time, to come home.

Only then did I realize, that all this time I already knew what love was.

Love was when I was with you.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow! I had this idea floating around in my head for a while, didn't think I would actually write it! (I'm not the only one that thinks Hide smells like sandalwood right?
> 
> Thank all for reading! Leave a kudos or somethin!


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